


adversity is the mother of wisdom

by Fiala



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Nostalgia, Other, Past, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 11:23:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2307836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fiala/pseuds/Fiala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You were as convoluted in life as you were in death, but only now could he fathom the reasons why you never left his thoughts. Prussia / Reader</p>
            </blockquote>





	adversity is the mother of wisdom

**Author's Note:**

> The title is the translation of the german proverb Aus Schaden wird man klug.

Prussia had know you for years before his own glory, and long enough to know you well. From the short ends of your temper, to your long faced existence as a warring state; always resisting, always fighting.

Back in the days when there was no one more powerful or threatening nearby than himself, Prussia hadn't thought of you as anything but a nuisance at worst...though you never lacked will and fervour whenever your forces clashed with his. 

Not that he'd ever felt threatened by you, no, especially not by you. It was more likely to say he feared the slice of your sword over you wrathful behaviour. A fear that could be erased with time and dutiful training.

You were neither a lacklustre opponent nor did you give him the benefit of the doubt in any act during battle. You fell into the grey that muddled ferocious and noble, never fitting any expectations he made of you. Whenever you did, however, you outgrew them without a moments notice.

It was all too clear to him that your objective was survival. The looming threat of cultural assimilation was constant, as was the assimilation of your land. He knew so because he had fought for the same reasons, for the same base need to sustain himself, and his people.

The only thing that had been different between the two of them was strength. Then, he succeeded you, having taken the fall as his brothers had before him.

Yet he had been the one to survive. He had won and had gained status as a great power.

Even after battles had waged and names had been altered and land fought over, this one barren field had always belonged to you. That much Prussia knew. He knew it as he had dug a hole into the dead soil, the same thoughts rebounded in his mind as he wedged the small stone marker in the dirt.

He knew as he scraped ever letter of your name into the granite, going over each stressed symbol in order to right every misspelt version of your name; muttering it to himself over and over throughout the sound of scraping stone.

Unlike with any other he had ever known, who were dissolved by time and learned by their successors, you remained a tangled web. Even in his own thoughts, you were still convoluted. Still a twisted mystery, still demanding respect in his consciousness long after your time had passed and faded.

And even though it was laughable, the facts remained brazen with each coming sunrise. A dead nation, a scourge of Europe, a forgotten face in most of those who remembered its history, had won his respect.

And if you'd known, you probably would've spat in his face with rambunctious laughter.

**Author's Note:**

> My first post on A03. I leave the interpretation of the Reader's gender up to the viewer, for you will not find it mentioned.
> 
> Also, I don't have a beta, so if there are grammatical or spelling mistakes that I have overlooked, please let me know!


End file.
